Monthly Archives: April 2016

FDA sued for ‘unlawful’ approval of GMO salmon

Leave a reply

A coalition of environmental, consumer, and commercial and recreational fishing organizations is suing the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

At issue is the agency’s approval last November of the first-ever genetically engineered (GE) food animal, an Atlantic salmon engineered to grow quickly.

The lawsuit challenges FDA’s extraordinary claim that it has authority to approve and regulate GE animals as ‘animal drugs’ under the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Those provisions were meant to ensure the safety of veterinary drugs administered to treat disease in livestock and were not intended to address entirely new GE animals that can pass along their altered genes to the next generation.

The approval of the GE salmon opens the door to other genetically engineered fish and shellfish, as well as chickens, cows, sheep, goats, rabbits and pigs that are reportedly in development.

“FDA’s decision is as unlawful as it is irresponsible”, said George Kimbrell, senior attorney for Center for Food Safety and co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

“This case is about protecting our fisheries and ocean ecosystems from the foreseeable harms of the first-ever GE fish, harms FDA refused to even consider, let alone prevent. But it’s also about the future of our food: FDA should not, and cannot, responsibly regulate this GE animal, nor any future GE animals, by treating them as drugs under a 1938 law.”

The lawsuit also highlights FDA’s failure to protect the environment and consult wildlife agencies in its review process, as required by federal law. US Atlantic salmon, and many populations of Pacific salmon, are protected by the Endangered Species Act and in danger of extinction.

“The FDA has failed to adequately examine the risks associated with transgenic salmon”, said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “The long term effects of people eating genetically modified foods have never been adequately addressed-and this GE salmon is no exception. This fish is unnecessary, so why take the risk?”

Severe ecological damage threatened by transgenic salmon

Salmon is a keystone species and unique runs have been treasured by residents for thousands of years. Diverse salmon runs today sustain thousands of American fishing families, and are highly valued in domestic markets as a healthy, domestic, ‘green’ food.

When GE salmon escape or are accidentally released into the environment, the new species could threaten wild populations by mating with endangered salmon species, outcompeting them for scarce resources and habitat, and/or introducing new diseases.

“Atlantic salmon populations including our endangered Gulf of Maine fish are hanging on by a thread – they can’t afford additional threats posed by GE salmon”, said Ed Friedman from Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, one of the parties who successfully petitioned to classify most Maine Atlantic salmon as endangered.

“The law requires agencies like FDA, who aren’t fisheries biologists, to get review and approval from scientists with that expertise. FDA’s refusal to do this before allowing commercialization of GE salmon is not only irresponsible, it violates the law.”

Studies have shown that there is a high risk for GE organisms to escape into the natural environment, and that GE salmon can crossbreed with native fish. Transgenic contamination has become common in the GE plant context, where contamination episodes have cost US farmers billions of dollars over the past decade. In wild organisms like fish, it could be even more damaging.

“Once they escape, you can’t put these transgenic fish back in the bag. They’re manufactured to outgrow wild salmon, and if they cross-breed, it could have irreversible impacts on the natural world”, said Dune Lankard, a salmon fisherman and the Center for Biological Diversity’s Alaska representative. “This kind of dangerous tinkering could easily morph into a disaster for wild salmon that will be impossible to undo.”

FDA ignored 2 million comments to approve the application

The man-made salmon was created by AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. with DNA from three fish: Atlantic salmon, Pacific king salmon, and Arctic ocean eelpout. This marks the first time any government in the world has approved a GE animal for commercial sale and consumption.

The FDA’s approval ignored comments from nearly 2 million people opposed to the approval because the agency failed to analyze and prevent the risks to wild salmon and the environment, as well as fishing communities, including the risk that GE salmon could escape and threaten endangered wild salmon stocks.

In approving the GE salmon, FDA also determined it would not require labeling of the GE fish to let consumers know what they are buying – which led Congress to call for labeling in the 2016 omnibus spending bill.

The world’s preeminent experts on GE fish and risk assessment, as well as biologists at US wildlife agencies charged with protecting fish and wildlife heavily criticized the FDA decision for failing to evaluate these impacts. FDA ignored their concerns in the final approval.

“There’s never been a farmed salmon that hasn’t eventually escaped into the natural environment“, said Golden Gate Salmon Association executive director John McManus. “Why should we believe that long term, these frankenfish won’t be the same?

From Panama to Alaska, a global supply chain

AquaBounty’s GE salmon will undertake a 5,000-mile journey to reach US supermarkets. The company plans to produce the GE salmon eggs on Prince Edward Island, Canada. The GE salmon will then be grown to market-size in a facility in Panama, processed into fillets, and shipped to the US for sale. That complicated scheme is only for the initial approval, however.

AquaBounty has publicly announced plans to ultimately grow its GE fish in the US rather than Panama, and sell it around the world. Despite this, FDA’s approval only considered the current plans for the far-flung facilities in Canada and Panama, leaving the risk of escape and contamination of US salmon runs unstudied.

“On Prince Edward Island and across Atlantic Canada, indigenous peoples, anglers and community groups are working hard to protect and restore endangered salmon populations and rivers“, said Mark Butler, policy director at Ecology Action Centre in Nova Scotia. “Genetic contamination threatens all this work and in return there is little or no economic benefit to the region.”

Gabriel Scott, Alaska legal director for Cascadia Wildlands, added: “FDA’s action threatens and disrespects the wild salmon ecosystems, cultures and industries that are treasured here in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. These folks think a salmon is just a packet of protein, but we in Salmon Nation know better.

“From Alaska to California, Americans are intimately related with diverse runs of salmon and we’ve learned their unique attributes and incredible value. We’ve worked very hard to be good stewards of our natural heritage, and refuse to allow that to be undone by one company’s irresponsible experiment.”

“It’s clear that the market has rejected GE salmon despite FDA’s reckless approval”, said Dana Perls, food and technology campaigner for Friends of the Earth.

“Major retailers including Costco, Safeway and Kroger won’t sell it and polls show the vast majority of people don’t want to eat it. Yet under this approval it won’t be labeled, violating our fundamental right to know what we are feeding our families.”

 

 

More information: View the Complaint.

The plaintiff coalition, jointly represented by legal counsel from Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice, includes Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Golden Gate Salmon Association, Kennebec Reborn, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, Ecology Action Centre, Food & Water Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Cascadia Wildlands, and Center for Food Safety.

Source: Center for Food Safety.

 

Cuba’s sustainable agriculture at risk in US diplomatic thaw

Leave a reply

President Obama’s trip to Cuba last week accelerated the warming of US-Cuban relations.

Many people in both countries believe that normalizing relations will spur investment that can help Cuba develop its economy and improve life for its citizens.

But in agriculture, US investment could cause harm instead.

For the past 35 years I have studied agroecology in most countries in Central and South America. Agroecology is an approach to farming that developed in the late 1970s in Latin America as a reaction against the top-down, technology-intensive and environmentally destructive strategy that characterizes modern industrial agriculture.

It encourages local production by small-scale farmers, using sustainable strategies and combining Western knowledge with traditional expertise.

Cuba took this approach out of necessity when its economic partner, the Soviet bloc, dissolved in the early 1990s. As a result, Cuban farming has become a leading example of ecological agriculture.

But if relations with US agribusiness companies are not managed carefully, Cuba could revert to an industrial approach that relies on mechanization, transgenic crops and agrochemicals, rolling back the revolutionary gains that its campesinos have achieved.

The shift to peasant agroecology

For several decades after Cuba’s 1959 revolution, socialist bloc countries accounted for nearly all of its foreign trade.

The government devoted 30% of agricultural land to sugarcane for export, while importing 57% of Cuba’s food supply. Farmers relied on tractors, massive amounts of pesticide and fertilizer inputs, all supplied by Soviet bloc countries. By the 1980s agricultural pests were increasing, soil quality was degrading and yields of some key crops like rice had begun to decline.

When Cuban trade with the Soviet bloc ended in the early 1990s, food production collapsed due to the loss of imported fertilizers, pesticides, tractors and petroleum. The situation was so bad that Cuba posted the worst growth in per capita food production in all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

But then farmers started adopting agroecological techniques, with support from Cuban scientists.

Thousands of oxen replaced tractors that could not function due to lack of petroleum and spare parts. Farmers substituted green manures for chemical fertilizers and artisanally produced biopesticides for insecticides. At the same time, Cuban policymakers adopted a range of agrarian reform and decentralization policies that encouraged forms of production where groups of farmers grow and market their produce collectively.

As Cuba reoriented its agriculture to depend less on imported chemical inputs and imported equipment, food production rebounded. From 1996 though 2005, per capita food production in Cuba increased by 4.2% yearly during a period when production was stagnant across Latin America and the Caribbean.

In the mid-2000s, the Ministry of Agriculture dismantled all ‘inefficient state companies’ and government-owned farms, endorsed the creation of 2,600 new small urban and suburban farms, and allowed farming on some three million hectares of unused state lands.

Urban gardens, which first sprang up during the economic crisis of the early 1990s, have developed into an important food source.

Today Cuba has 383,000 urban farms, covering 50,000 hectares of otherwise unused land and producing more than 1.5 million tons of vegetables. The most productive urban farms yield up to 20 kg of food per square meter, the highest rate in the world, using no synthetic chemicals. Urban farms supply 50% to 70% or more of all the fresh vegetables consumed in cities such as Havana and Villa Clara.

The risks of opening up

Now Cuba’s agriculture system is under increasing pressure to deliver harvests for export and for Cuba’s burgeoning tourist markets. Part of the production is shifting away from feeding local and regional markets, and increasingly focusing on feeding tourists and producing organic tropical products for export.

President Obama hopes to open the door for US businesses to sell goods to Cuba. In Havana last Monday during Obama’s visit, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack signed an agreement with his Cuban counterpart, Agriculture Minister Gustavo Rodriguez Rollero, to promote sharing of ideas and research.

“US producers are eager to help meet Cuba’s need for healthy, safe, nutritious food”, Vilsack said. The US Agriculture Coalition for Cuba, which was launched in 2014 to lobby for an end to the US-Cuba trade embargo, includes more than 100 agricultural companies and trade groups.

Analysts estimate that US agricultural exports to Cuba could reach US$1.2 billion if remaining regulations are relaxed and trade barriers are lifted, a market that US agribusiness wants to capture.

When agribusinesses invest in developing countries, they seek economies of scale. This encourages concentration of land in the hands of a few corporations and standardization of small-scale production systems. In turn, these changes force small farmers off of their lands and lead to the abandonment of local crops and traditional farming ways. The expansion of transgenic crops and agrofuels in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia since the 1990s are examples of this process.

If US industrial agriculture expands into Cuba, there is a risk that it could destroy the complex social network of agroecological small farms that more than 300,000 campesinos have built up over the past several decades through farmer-to-farmer horizontal exchanges of knowledge.

This would reduce the diversity of crops that Cuba produces and harm local economies and food security. If large businesses displace small-scale farmers, agriculture will move toward export crops, increasing the ranks of unemployed. There is nothing wrong with small farmers capturing a share of export markets, as long as it does not mean neglecting their roles as local food producers. The Cuban government thus will have to protect campesinos by not importing food products that peasants produce.

Cuba still imports some of its food, including US products such as poultry and soybean meal. Since agricultural sales to Cuba were legalized in 2000, US agricultural exports have totaled about $5 billion. However, yearly sales have fallen from a high of $658 million in 2008 to $300 million in 2014.

US companies would like to regain some of the market share that they have lost to the European Union and Brazil.

There is broad debate over how heavily Cuba relies on imports to feed its population: the US Department of Agriculture estimates that imports make up 60% to 80% of Cubans’ caloric intake, but other assessments are much lower.

Agroecology is too way good to lose!

In fact, Cuba has the potential to produce enough food with agroecological methods to feed its 11 million inhabitants. Cuba has about six million hectares of fairly level land and another million gently sloping hectares that can be used for cropping. More than half of this land remains uncultivated, and the productivity of both land and labor, as well as the efficiency of resource use, in the rest of this farm area are still low.

We have calculated that if all peasant farms and cooperatives adopted diversified agroecological designs, Cuba would be able to produce enough to feed its population, supply food to the tourist industry and even export some food to help generate foreign currency.

President Raul Castro has stated that while opening relations with the US has some benefits,

“We will not renounce our ideals of independence and social justice, or surrender even a single one of our principles, or concede a millimeter in the defense of our national sovereignty. We have won this sovereign right with great sacrifices and at the cost of great risks.”

Cuba’s small farmers control only 25% of the nation’s agricultural land but produce over 65% of the country’s food, contributing significantly to the island’s sovereignity. Their agroecological achievements represent a true legacy of Cuba’s revolution.

 

 

Miguel Altieri is Professor of Agroecology, University of California, BerkeleyThe Conversation.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

 

FDA sued for ‘unlawful’ approval of GMO salmon

Leave a reply

A coalition of environmental, consumer, and commercial and recreational fishing organizations is suing the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

At issue is the agency’s approval last November of the first-ever genetically engineered (GE) food animal, an Atlantic salmon engineered to grow quickly.

The lawsuit challenges FDA’s extraordinary claim that it has authority to approve and regulate GE animals as ‘animal drugs’ under the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Those provisions were meant to ensure the safety of veterinary drugs administered to treat disease in livestock and were not intended to address entirely new GE animals that can pass along their altered genes to the next generation.

The approval of the GE salmon opens the door to other genetically engineered fish and shellfish, as well as chickens, cows, sheep, goats, rabbits and pigs that are reportedly in development.

“FDA’s decision is as unlawful as it is irresponsible”, said George Kimbrell, senior attorney for Center for Food Safety and co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

“This case is about protecting our fisheries and ocean ecosystems from the foreseeable harms of the first-ever GE fish, harms FDA refused to even consider, let alone prevent. But it’s also about the future of our food: FDA should not, and cannot, responsibly regulate this GE animal, nor any future GE animals, by treating them as drugs under a 1938 law.”

The lawsuit also highlights FDA’s failure to protect the environment and consult wildlife agencies in its review process, as required by federal law. US Atlantic salmon, and many populations of Pacific salmon, are protected by the Endangered Species Act and in danger of extinction.

“The FDA has failed to adequately examine the risks associated with transgenic salmon”, said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “The long term effects of people eating genetically modified foods have never been adequately addressed-and this GE salmon is no exception. This fish is unnecessary, so why take the risk?”

Severe ecological damage threatened by transgenic salmon

Salmon is a keystone species and unique runs have been treasured by residents for thousands of years. Diverse salmon runs today sustain thousands of American fishing families, and are highly valued in domestic markets as a healthy, domestic, ‘green’ food.

When GE salmon escape or are accidentally released into the environment, the new species could threaten wild populations by mating with endangered salmon species, outcompeting them for scarce resources and habitat, and/or introducing new diseases.

“Atlantic salmon populations including our endangered Gulf of Maine fish are hanging on by a thread – they can’t afford additional threats posed by GE salmon”, said Ed Friedman from Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, one of the parties who successfully petitioned to classify most Maine Atlantic salmon as endangered.

“The law requires agencies like FDA, who aren’t fisheries biologists, to get review and approval from scientists with that expertise. FDA’s refusal to do this before allowing commercialization of GE salmon is not only irresponsible, it violates the law.”

Studies have shown that there is a high risk for GE organisms to escape into the natural environment, and that GE salmon can crossbreed with native fish. Transgenic contamination has become common in the GE plant context, where contamination episodes have cost US farmers billions of dollars over the past decade. In wild organisms like fish, it could be even more damaging.

“Once they escape, you can’t put these transgenic fish back in the bag. They’re manufactured to outgrow wild salmon, and if they cross-breed, it could have irreversible impacts on the natural world”, said Dune Lankard, a salmon fisherman and the Center for Biological Diversity’s Alaska representative. “This kind of dangerous tinkering could easily morph into a disaster for wild salmon that will be impossible to undo.”

FDA ignored 2 million comments to approve the application

The man-made salmon was created by AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. with DNA from three fish: Atlantic salmon, Pacific king salmon, and Arctic ocean eelpout. This marks the first time any government in the world has approved a GE animal for commercial sale and consumption.

The FDA’s approval ignored comments from nearly 2 million people opposed to the approval because the agency failed to analyze and prevent the risks to wild salmon and the environment, as well as fishing communities, including the risk that GE salmon could escape and threaten endangered wild salmon stocks.

In approving the GE salmon, FDA also determined it would not require labeling of the GE fish to let consumers know what they are buying – which led Congress to call for labeling in the 2016 omnibus spending bill.

The world’s preeminent experts on GE fish and risk assessment, as well as biologists at US wildlife agencies charged with protecting fish and wildlife heavily criticized the FDA decision for failing to evaluate these impacts. FDA ignored their concerns in the final approval.

“There’s never been a farmed salmon that hasn’t eventually escaped into the natural environment“, said Golden Gate Salmon Association executive director John McManus. “Why should we believe that long term, these frankenfish won’t be the same?

From Panama to Alaska, a global supply chain

AquaBounty’s GE salmon will undertake a 5,000-mile journey to reach US supermarkets. The company plans to produce the GE salmon eggs on Prince Edward Island, Canada. The GE salmon will then be grown to market-size in a facility in Panama, processed into fillets, and shipped to the US for sale. That complicated scheme is only for the initial approval, however.

AquaBounty has publicly announced plans to ultimately grow its GE fish in the US rather than Panama, and sell it around the world. Despite this, FDA’s approval only considered the current plans for the far-flung facilities in Canada and Panama, leaving the risk of escape and contamination of US salmon runs unstudied.

“On Prince Edward Island and across Atlantic Canada, indigenous peoples, anglers and community groups are working hard to protect and restore endangered salmon populations and rivers“, said Mark Butler, policy director at Ecology Action Centre in Nova Scotia. “Genetic contamination threatens all this work and in return there is little or no economic benefit to the region.”

Gabriel Scott, Alaska legal director for Cascadia Wildlands, added: “FDA’s action threatens and disrespects the wild salmon ecosystems, cultures and industries that are treasured here in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. These folks think a salmon is just a packet of protein, but we in Salmon Nation know better.

“From Alaska to California, Americans are intimately related with diverse runs of salmon and we’ve learned their unique attributes and incredible value. We’ve worked very hard to be good stewards of our natural heritage, and refuse to allow that to be undone by one company’s irresponsible experiment.”

“It’s clear that the market has rejected GE salmon despite FDA’s reckless approval”, said Dana Perls, food and technology campaigner for Friends of the Earth.

“Major retailers including Costco, Safeway and Kroger won’t sell it and polls show the vast majority of people don’t want to eat it. Yet under this approval it won’t be labeled, violating our fundamental right to know what we are feeding our families.”

 

 

More information: View the Complaint.

The plaintiff coalition, jointly represented by legal counsel from Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice, includes Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Golden Gate Salmon Association, Kennebec Reborn, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, Ecology Action Centre, Food & Water Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Cascadia Wildlands, and Center for Food Safety.

Source: Center for Food Safety.

 

Cuba’s sustainable agriculture at risk in US diplomatic thaw

Leave a reply

President Obama’s trip to Cuba last week accelerated the warming of US-Cuban relations.

Many people in both countries believe that normalizing relations will spur investment that can help Cuba develop its economy and improve life for its citizens.

But in agriculture, US investment could cause harm instead.

For the past 35 years I have studied agroecology in most countries in Central and South America. Agroecology is an approach to farming that developed in the late 1970s in Latin America as a reaction against the top-down, technology-intensive and environmentally destructive strategy that characterizes modern industrial agriculture.

It encourages local production by small-scale farmers, using sustainable strategies and combining Western knowledge with traditional expertise.

Cuba took this approach out of necessity when its economic partner, the Soviet bloc, dissolved in the early 1990s. As a result, Cuban farming has become a leading example of ecological agriculture.

But if relations with US agribusiness companies are not managed carefully, Cuba could revert to an industrial approach that relies on mechanization, transgenic crops and agrochemicals, rolling back the revolutionary gains that its campesinos have achieved.

The shift to peasant agroecology

For several decades after Cuba’s 1959 revolution, socialist bloc countries accounted for nearly all of its foreign trade.

The government devoted 30% of agricultural land to sugarcane for export, while importing 57% of Cuba’s food supply. Farmers relied on tractors, massive amounts of pesticide and fertilizer inputs, all supplied by Soviet bloc countries. By the 1980s agricultural pests were increasing, soil quality was degrading and yields of some key crops like rice had begun to decline.

When Cuban trade with the Soviet bloc ended in the early 1990s, food production collapsed due to the loss of imported fertilizers, pesticides, tractors and petroleum. The situation was so bad that Cuba posted the worst growth in per capita food production in all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

But then farmers started adopting agroecological techniques, with support from Cuban scientists.

Thousands of oxen replaced tractors that could not function due to lack of petroleum and spare parts. Farmers substituted green manures for chemical fertilizers and artisanally produced biopesticides for insecticides. At the same time, Cuban policymakers adopted a range of agrarian reform and decentralization policies that encouraged forms of production where groups of farmers grow and market their produce collectively.

As Cuba reoriented its agriculture to depend less on imported chemical inputs and imported equipment, food production rebounded. From 1996 though 2005, per capita food production in Cuba increased by 4.2% yearly during a period when production was stagnant across Latin America and the Caribbean.

In the mid-2000s, the Ministry of Agriculture dismantled all ‘inefficient state companies’ and government-owned farms, endorsed the creation of 2,600 new small urban and suburban farms, and allowed farming on some three million hectares of unused state lands.

Urban gardens, which first sprang up during the economic crisis of the early 1990s, have developed into an important food source.

Today Cuba has 383,000 urban farms, covering 50,000 hectares of otherwise unused land and producing more than 1.5 million tons of vegetables. The most productive urban farms yield up to 20 kg of food per square meter, the highest rate in the world, using no synthetic chemicals. Urban farms supply 50% to 70% or more of all the fresh vegetables consumed in cities such as Havana and Villa Clara.

The risks of opening up

Now Cuba’s agriculture system is under increasing pressure to deliver harvests for export and for Cuba’s burgeoning tourist markets. Part of the production is shifting away from feeding local and regional markets, and increasingly focusing on feeding tourists and producing organic tropical products for export.

President Obama hopes to open the door for US businesses to sell goods to Cuba. In Havana last Monday during Obama’s visit, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack signed an agreement with his Cuban counterpart, Agriculture Minister Gustavo Rodriguez Rollero, to promote sharing of ideas and research.

“US producers are eager to help meet Cuba’s need for healthy, safe, nutritious food”, Vilsack said. The US Agriculture Coalition for Cuba, which was launched in 2014 to lobby for an end to the US-Cuba trade embargo, includes more than 100 agricultural companies and trade groups.

Analysts estimate that US agricultural exports to Cuba could reach US$1.2 billion if remaining regulations are relaxed and trade barriers are lifted, a market that US agribusiness wants to capture.

When agribusinesses invest in developing countries, they seek economies of scale. This encourages concentration of land in the hands of a few corporations and standardization of small-scale production systems. In turn, these changes force small farmers off of their lands and lead to the abandonment of local crops and traditional farming ways. The expansion of transgenic crops and agrofuels in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia since the 1990s are examples of this process.

If US industrial agriculture expands into Cuba, there is a risk that it could destroy the complex social network of agroecological small farms that more than 300,000 campesinos have built up over the past several decades through farmer-to-farmer horizontal exchanges of knowledge.

This would reduce the diversity of crops that Cuba produces and harm local economies and food security. If large businesses displace small-scale farmers, agriculture will move toward export crops, increasing the ranks of unemployed. There is nothing wrong with small farmers capturing a share of export markets, as long as it does not mean neglecting their roles as local food producers. The Cuban government thus will have to protect campesinos by not importing food products that peasants produce.

Cuba still imports some of its food, including US products such as poultry and soybean meal. Since agricultural sales to Cuba were legalized in 2000, US agricultural exports have totaled about $5 billion. However, yearly sales have fallen from a high of $658 million in 2008 to $300 million in 2014.

US companies would like to regain some of the market share that they have lost to the European Union and Brazil.

There is broad debate over how heavily Cuba relies on imports to feed its population: the US Department of Agriculture estimates that imports make up 60% to 80% of Cubans’ caloric intake, but other assessments are much lower.

Agroecology is too way good to lose!

In fact, Cuba has the potential to produce enough food with agroecological methods to feed its 11 million inhabitants. Cuba has about six million hectares of fairly level land and another million gently sloping hectares that can be used for cropping. More than half of this land remains uncultivated, and the productivity of both land and labor, as well as the efficiency of resource use, in the rest of this farm area are still low.

We have calculated that if all peasant farms and cooperatives adopted diversified agroecological designs, Cuba would be able to produce enough to feed its population, supply food to the tourist industry and even export some food to help generate foreign currency.

President Raul Castro has stated that while opening relations with the US has some benefits,

“We will not renounce our ideals of independence and social justice, or surrender even a single one of our principles, or concede a millimeter in the defense of our national sovereignty. We have won this sovereign right with great sacrifices and at the cost of great risks.”

Cuba’s small farmers control only 25% of the nation’s agricultural land but produce over 65% of the country’s food, contributing significantly to the island’s sovereignity. Their agroecological achievements represent a true legacy of Cuba’s revolution.

 

 

Miguel Altieri is Professor of Agroecology, University of California, BerkeleyThe Conversation.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

 

EDF shows that wind makes better sense than nuclear

Leave a reply

EDF’s travails over Hinkley persist. The FT reported this week that engineers within the company have written a memo asking management to wait to proceed with construction until the other EPRs in Finland and Normandy have been successfully completed.

A director has said he will vote against the UK nuclear project. The £18bn project is stalled until internal debates within EDF are resolved. The Times has also reported on a looming £1.8 billion cost overrun pushing the cost up to £19.8 billion.

Michel Degryck of the Paris-based corporate financier Capitalmind and an expert on EDF, told the newspaper that Areva had been asking suppliers to resubmit detailed offers for key components of the Hinkley station.

“We understand that a number of costs were probably underestimated when they did their last pricing in 2013”, said Mr Degryck. “They will have to take into account new costs … The cost of the project could rise by 10 per cent.”

Meanwhile EDF boss Vincent de Rivaz remains mysteriously ebullient on Hinkley C’s prospects, insisting in a letter to the FT: “As I said categorically at the energy and climate change select committee hearing last week, this project will go ahead and the investment decision will be made very soon.

*EDF is fully confident that it will deliver this project on time and on budget … Hinkley Point C will be operational in 2025. EDF has no plan whatsoever to change this date.”

But across the Atlantic, it’s all go for renewables!

Within the same company, they do things very differently on the other side of the Atlantic; there EDF focuses wholeheartedly on wind and has no nuclear under development.

It has just proudly announced that it has become the largest wind developer in North America with a portfolio in 2015 of over 1 gigawatt of newly constructed wind farms.

If it continues at the current rate, it will be generating more electricity from wind by 2025 than would be provided by Hinkley Point C. The numbers are as follows. Hinkley will generate about 25 terawatt hours a year. EDF’s 2015 annual portfolio of new wind projects will provide about 3 terawatt hours a year at average US utilisation factors.

If it continues to develop new wind projects at the rate of 1 gigawatt a year, it will be generating well over 30 terawatt hours a year from wind by the end of 2025. 2025 is when EDF says Hinkley will be finished.

What about the capital cost of wind versus nuclear? The latest US estimates suggest a figure of about $1,700 per kilowatt of capacity. That means EDF’s projects completed in 2015 cost about $1.8bn. Over ten years, that rate of installation will mean a total cost of around $18bn or about £13bn. Wind is therefore at least 30% cheaper to construct.

And it is much cheaper to operate. The most important project it completed in 2015, the 250 MW farm at Roosevelt in New Mexico, has sold its electricity for the next 20 years to a utility for $23.39 a megawatt hour, less than 20% of the price agreed for Hinkley of £92.50/MWh.

Note that the Roosevelt price is somewhat subsidised by Federal tax credits but even without this benefit the cost of wind would be less than 40% of the price of UK nuclear. Wind saves consumers money when compared to the nuclear alternative.

It’s simple really: renewables are a better and more secure investment

EDF finances many of its US wind projects on the back of power purchase agreements with major companies such as Microsoft, Procter and Gamble and Google. They commit to buy the electricity produced at a fixed price, not the inflation adjusted figure that the UK will pay for Hinkley. The EDF press release said:

“Corporate America is increasingly turning to renewable energy to power its business operations, based both on consumer preferences and because renewable energy simply makes economic sense.”

We never hear this line from EDF in the UK.

EDF cannot guarantee the wind will blow or the sun shine. Unlike in Britain, its US business is also investing heavily in energy storage. The US company has announced 100MW of battery systems in the US because “Energy storage is an attractive, cost-effective addition to intermittent energy generation projects.” However there’s no mention of batteries on EDF’s UK web site.

For sensible reasons large international companies often pursue varied market strategies in different countries. EDF in the US has decided to back wind while the UK has gone for nuclear.

But even a quick look shows that the energy and financial returns to the US strategy seem far clearer and better for the company, and its customers, than the tactics of the UK business.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change, and a frequent contributor to The Ecologist. He blogs at Carbon Commentary. His next book, ‘The Switch’, is due for publication in 2016.

Also on The Ecologist: the Energy Brainpool proposal to replicate Hinkley C’s power output at lower cost using 100% renewable energy by using a combination of onshore wind, power to gas technology and gas power stations.

This article was first published on Carbon Commentary. Ideas expressed in this article are explored in far greater detail in The Switch, a book about the global transition to solar power, to be published in June 2016 by Profile Books. This version contains some additional reporting by The Ecologist.

 

Exxon is the one guilty of ‘chilling’ climate science!

Leave a reply

Exxon is under pressure – and it’s not only because of low oil prices. Rather it’s climate change and the associated shareholder and legal scrutiny that has put Exxon’s back firmly to the wall.

Following fast on the news that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has forced Exxon to allow shareholder votes on climate resolutions, two more US Attorneys General (AG) have joined those of New York and California in confirming investigations into Exxon’s climate change disclosures.

They now form part of a coalition of 20 AGs that came together this week to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their climate deceptions. The idea of a US AG investigating a company of such political and economic heft – on climate change – once seemed unimaginable.

Maybe it’s that ‘unimaginability’ that has resulted in Exxon’s continued mishandling of its response to the recent climate-focused shareholder actions, journalistic exposés, and legal investigations. With every development, it increasingly appears that Exxon is wholly unequipped to deal with the tectonic political, legal, and societal shifts we’re witnessing on climate action.

The old certainty of a pro-industry White House, whoever the occupant, is fast eroding. Shareholders are starting to think beyond the next dividend cheque to the long-term sustainability – in financial terms – of this 19th century industry. And the societal standing of the industry appears destined to follow tobacco’s trajectory.

This is very much a brave new world for Exxon. Its navigation attempts to date suggest it is not in possession of the correct map.

One wonders if Exxon regrets its decision to forego membership of the European-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative – a seemingly public relations driven effort to position oil companies as an essential part of the solution to climate change.

Instead Exxon and its US counterparts considered it unnecessary and went it alone. Under increasing attack, Exxon may have preferred some comforting company. But looking at Exxon’s reaction to recent events one doesn’t sense any acknowledgement of a missed opportunity.

Exxon didn’t want shareholders to vote on climate. It lost

Let’s take its reaction to shareholder efforts to force greater disclosure on climate risk through a shareholder resolution. Shareholders are increasingly aware of the fundamental organisational challenge that climate risk presents to oil companies.

But rather than follow Shell and BP’s tactical masterstroke of supporting similar resolutions, Exxon asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to exclude its resolution from even going to a vote.

Did Exxon really think the SEC – itself facing calls from investors to do more on climate – would rule in its favour? If so, it looks like Exxon is using an old playbook for a game whose rules have fundamentally changed. Exxon’s seemingly out of date tactics are a worrying proxy for the company’s ability to handle the far greater risk posed by a low carbon transition.

The SEC rejected Exxon’s arguments and by allowing votes on key climate change resolutions have provided the opportunity for shareholders to make their views clear. Investors need to ensure Exxon’s board are using the right map to navigate that pathway or at the very least admit to currently following the wrong one.

Investigative journalists doing their job inflames Exxon

Then there’s the company’s initial response to the allegations made by Columbia journalism students via the Los Angeles Times about what Exxon knew and disclosed about climate change.

Ken Cohen, Exxon’s vice president of Public and Government Affairs chose to fire off a letter to the President of Columbia University, accusing Columbia’s reports of “cherry picking” and “distorting statements” and, most severely, “research misconduct.”

After referencing Exxon and the university’s “numerous and productive relationships”, Cohen finished by demanding a formal inquiry.

In response Steven Coll, the dean of Columbia Journalism School issued a scathing letter that stated: “Your letter disputes the substance of the two articles in a number of respects, but consists largely of attacks on the project’s journalists. I have concluded that your allegations are unsupported by evidence.

“More than that, I have been troubled to discover that you have made serious allegations of professional misconduct in your letter against members of the project team even though you or your Media Relations colleagues possess email records showing that your allegations are false.”

He concluded: “What your letter really advocates is that the factual information accurately reported in the article, and unchallenged by you, be interpreted differently.”

Exxon’s response was also criticised by crisis management experts like Jonathan Bernstein of Bernstein Crisis Management Inc, whose advises the company to “apologize”.

Funders of investigations also in the in the line of fire

The oil industry’s PR apparatus also rose up in misguided defense of Exxon – via the industry-funded ‘Energy in Depth’ site – targeting philanthropists including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund, ‘accusing‘ them of funding the InsideClimate News and Columbia reports.

Exxon followed up by calling the reports “discredited” and the funders “activists”. It’s not news that foundations fund public interest investigative journalism -and it doesn’t make funders activists just because the target doesn’t like the findings – but that didn’t stop Exxon from trying to drum up a scandal that doesn’t exist.

Exxon appears to see no irony in it and its industry peers funnelling millions of dollars to those fighting climate mitigation and challenging climate science.

And that brings us to the company’s official response to the latest AG investigations – those of Massachusetts and the US Virgin Islands. In a statement which kicks off with the warning that “we are actively assessing all legal options”, Exxon goes onto to warn of the “chilling effect” of the investigations on company research:

“The allegations are based on the false premise that ExxonMobil reached definitive conclusions about anthropogenic climate change before the world’s experts and before the science itself had matured, and then withheld it from the broader scientific community. Such a claim is preposterous … Contrary to activists’ claims, our company’s deliberations decades ago yielded no definitive conclusions …

“The investigations targeting our company threaten to have a chilling effect on private sector research. The allegations repeated today are an attempt to limit free speech and are the antithesis of scientific inquiry. Left unchallenged, they could stifle the search for solutions to the real risks from climate change.”

Exxon appears to believe no investigations should even take place. This is despite the very serious allegations going to securities and consumer laws. That’s how the law works: allegation – investigation – finding. But to Exxon this is all a case of “politically motivated” actions and “discredited reporting” that should be automatically dismissed.

The achievement of the ambition expressed in the Paris Agreement requires transformative legislation and corporate strategy.

In that context one might legitimately question: whose actions might have the most societally detrimental ‘chilling effect’ on tackling climate change? Exxon’s or the Attorneys General’s’?

 

 

Louise Rouse is an investment campaign consultant to Greenpeace UK.

Naomi Ages is attorney and campaigner with Greenpeace USA.

This article was originally published by Greenpeace Energydesk. Some additional reporting by The Ecologist.

 

Exxon is the one guilty of ‘chilling’ climate science!

Leave a reply

Exxon is under pressure – and it’s not only because of low oil prices. Rather it’s climate change and the associated shareholder and legal scrutiny that has put Exxon’s back firmly to the wall.

Following fast on the news that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has forced Exxon to allow shareholder votes on climate resolutions, two more US Attorneys General (AG) have joined those of New York and California in confirming investigations into Exxon’s climate change disclosures.

They now form part of a coalition of 20 AGs that came together this week to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their climate deceptions. The idea of a US AG investigating a company of such political and economic heft – on climate change – once seemed unimaginable.

Maybe it’s that ‘unimaginability’ that has resulted in Exxon’s continued mishandling of its response to the recent climate-focused shareholder actions, journalistic exposés, and legal investigations. With every development, it increasingly appears that Exxon is wholly unequipped to deal with the tectonic political, legal, and societal shifts we’re witnessing on climate action.

The old certainty of a pro-industry White House, whoever the occupant, is fast eroding. Shareholders are starting to think beyond the next dividend cheque to the long-term sustainability – in financial terms – of this 19th century industry. And the societal standing of the industry appears destined to follow tobacco’s trajectory.

This is very much a brave new world for Exxon. Its navigation attempts to date suggest it is not in possession of the correct map.

One wonders if Exxon regrets its decision to forego membership of the European-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative – a seemingly public relations driven effort to position oil companies as an essential part of the solution to climate change.

Instead Exxon and its US counterparts considered it unnecessary and went it alone. Under increasing attack, Exxon may have preferred some comforting company. But looking at Exxon’s reaction to recent events one doesn’t sense any acknowledgement of a missed opportunity.

Exxon didn’t want shareholders to vote on climate. It lost

Let’s take its reaction to shareholder efforts to force greater disclosure on climate risk through a shareholder resolution. Shareholders are increasingly aware of the fundamental organisational challenge that climate risk presents to oil companies.

But rather than follow Shell and BP’s tactical masterstroke of supporting similar resolutions, Exxon asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to exclude its resolution from even going to a vote.

Did Exxon really think the SEC – itself facing calls from investors to do more on climate – would rule in its favour? If so, it looks like Exxon is using an old playbook for a game whose rules have fundamentally changed. Exxon’s seemingly out of date tactics are a worrying proxy for the company’s ability to handle the far greater risk posed by a low carbon transition.

The SEC rejected Exxon’s arguments and by allowing votes on key climate change resolutions have provided the opportunity for shareholders to make their views clear. Investors need to ensure Exxon’s board are using the right map to navigate that pathway or at the very least admit to currently following the wrong one.

Investigative journalists doing their job inflames Exxon

Then there’s the company’s initial response to the allegations made by Columbia journalism students via the Los Angeles Times about what Exxon knew and disclosed about climate change.

Ken Cohen, Exxon’s vice president of Public and Government Affairs chose to fire off a letter to the President of Columbia University, accusing Columbia’s reports of “cherry picking” and “distorting statements” and, most severely, “research misconduct.”

After referencing Exxon and the university’s “numerous and productive relationships”, Cohen finished by demanding a formal inquiry.

In response Steven Coll, the dean of Columbia Journalism School issued a scathing letter that stated: “Your letter disputes the substance of the two articles in a number of respects, but consists largely of attacks on the project’s journalists. I have concluded that your allegations are unsupported by evidence.

“More than that, I have been troubled to discover that you have made serious allegations of professional misconduct in your letter against members of the project team even though you or your Media Relations colleagues possess email records showing that your allegations are false.”

He concluded: “What your letter really advocates is that the factual information accurately reported in the article, and unchallenged by you, be interpreted differently.”

Exxon’s response was also criticised by crisis management experts like Jonathan Bernstein of Bernstein Crisis Management Inc, whose advises the company to “apologize”.

Funders of investigations also in the in the line of fire

The oil industry’s PR apparatus also rose up in misguided defense of Exxon – via the industry-funded ‘Energy in Depth’ site – targeting philanthropists including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund, ‘accusing‘ them of funding the InsideClimate News and Columbia reports.

Exxon followed up by calling the reports “discredited” and the funders “activists”. It’s not news that foundations fund public interest investigative journalism -and it doesn’t make funders activists just because the target doesn’t like the findings – but that didn’t stop Exxon from trying to drum up a scandal that doesn’t exist.

Exxon appears to see no irony in it and its industry peers funnelling millions of dollars to those fighting climate mitigation and challenging climate science.

And that brings us to the company’s official response to the latest AG investigations – those of Massachusetts and the US Virgin Islands. In a statement which kicks off with the warning that “we are actively assessing all legal options”, Exxon goes onto to warn of the “chilling effect” of the investigations on company research:

“The allegations are based on the false premise that ExxonMobil reached definitive conclusions about anthropogenic climate change before the world’s experts and before the science itself had matured, and then withheld it from the broader scientific community. Such a claim is preposterous … Contrary to activists’ claims, our company’s deliberations decades ago yielded no definitive conclusions …

“The investigations targeting our company threaten to have a chilling effect on private sector research. The allegations repeated today are an attempt to limit free speech and are the antithesis of scientific inquiry. Left unchallenged, they could stifle the search for solutions to the real risks from climate change.”

Exxon appears to believe no investigations should even take place. This is despite the very serious allegations going to securities and consumer laws. That’s how the law works: allegation – investigation – finding. But to Exxon this is all a case of “politically motivated” actions and “discredited reporting” that should be automatically dismissed.

The achievement of the ambition expressed in the Paris Agreement requires transformative legislation and corporate strategy.

In that context one might legitimately question: whose actions might have the most societally detrimental ‘chilling effect’ on tackling climate change? Exxon’s or the Attorneys General’s’?

 

 

Louise Rouse is an investment campaign consultant to Greenpeace UK.

Naomi Ages is attorney and campaigner with Greenpeace USA.

This article was originally published by Greenpeace Energydesk. Some additional reporting by The Ecologist.

 

Exxon is the one guilty of ‘chilling’ climate science!

Leave a reply

Exxon is under pressure – and it’s not only because of low oil prices. Rather it’s climate change and the associated shareholder and legal scrutiny that has put Exxon’s back firmly to the wall.

Following fast on the news that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has forced Exxon to allow shareholder votes on climate resolutions, two more US Attorneys General (AG) have joined those of New York and California in confirming investigations into Exxon’s climate change disclosures.

They now form part of a coalition of 20 AGs that came together this week to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their climate deceptions. The idea of a US AG investigating a company of such political and economic heft – on climate change – once seemed unimaginable.

Maybe it’s that ‘unimaginability’ that has resulted in Exxon’s continued mishandling of its response to the recent climate-focused shareholder actions, journalistic exposés, and legal investigations. With every development, it increasingly appears that Exxon is wholly unequipped to deal with the tectonic political, legal, and societal shifts we’re witnessing on climate action.

The old certainty of a pro-industry White House, whoever the occupant, is fast eroding. Shareholders are starting to think beyond the next dividend cheque to the long-term sustainability – in financial terms – of this 19th century industry. And the societal standing of the industry appears destined to follow tobacco’s trajectory.

This is very much a brave new world for Exxon. Its navigation attempts to date suggest it is not in possession of the correct map.

One wonders if Exxon regrets its decision to forego membership of the European-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative – a seemingly public relations driven effort to position oil companies as an essential part of the solution to climate change.

Instead Exxon and its US counterparts considered it unnecessary and went it alone. Under increasing attack, Exxon may have preferred some comforting company. But looking at Exxon’s reaction to recent events one doesn’t sense any acknowledgement of a missed opportunity.

Exxon didn’t want shareholders to vote on climate. It lost

Let’s take its reaction to shareholder efforts to force greater disclosure on climate risk through a shareholder resolution. Shareholders are increasingly aware of the fundamental organisational challenge that climate risk presents to oil companies.

But rather than follow Shell and BP’s tactical masterstroke of supporting similar resolutions, Exxon asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to exclude its resolution from even going to a vote.

Did Exxon really think the SEC – itself facing calls from investors to do more on climate – would rule in its favour? If so, it looks like Exxon is using an old playbook for a game whose rules have fundamentally changed. Exxon’s seemingly out of date tactics are a worrying proxy for the company’s ability to handle the far greater risk posed by a low carbon transition.

The SEC rejected Exxon’s arguments and by allowing votes on key climate change resolutions have provided the opportunity for shareholders to make their views clear. Investors need to ensure Exxon’s board are using the right map to navigate that pathway or at the very least admit to currently following the wrong one.

Investigative journalists doing their job inflames Exxon

Then there’s the company’s initial response to the allegations made by Columbia journalism students via the Los Angeles Times about what Exxon knew and disclosed about climate change.

Ken Cohen, Exxon’s vice president of Public and Government Affairs chose to fire off a letter to the President of Columbia University, accusing Columbia’s reports of “cherry picking” and “distorting statements” and, most severely, “research misconduct.”

After referencing Exxon and the university’s “numerous and productive relationships”, Cohen finished by demanding a formal inquiry.

In response Steven Coll, the dean of Columbia Journalism School issued a scathing letter that stated: “Your letter disputes the substance of the two articles in a number of respects, but consists largely of attacks on the project’s journalists. I have concluded that your allegations are unsupported by evidence.

“More than that, I have been troubled to discover that you have made serious allegations of professional misconduct in your letter against members of the project team even though you or your Media Relations colleagues possess email records showing that your allegations are false.”

He concluded: “What your letter really advocates is that the factual information accurately reported in the article, and unchallenged by you, be interpreted differently.”

Exxon’s response was also criticised by crisis management experts like Jonathan Bernstein of Bernstein Crisis Management Inc, whose advises the company to “apologize”.

Funders of investigations also in the in the line of fire

The oil industry’s PR apparatus also rose up in misguided defense of Exxon – via the industry-funded ‘Energy in Depth’ site – targeting philanthropists including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund, ‘accusing‘ them of funding the InsideClimate News and Columbia reports.

Exxon followed up by calling the reports “discredited” and the funders “activists”. It’s not news that foundations fund public interest investigative journalism -and it doesn’t make funders activists just because the target doesn’t like the findings – but that didn’t stop Exxon from trying to drum up a scandal that doesn’t exist.

Exxon appears to see no irony in it and its industry peers funnelling millions of dollars to those fighting climate mitigation and challenging climate science.

And that brings us to the company’s official response to the latest AG investigations – those of Massachusetts and the US Virgin Islands. In a statement which kicks off with the warning that “we are actively assessing all legal options”, Exxon goes onto to warn of the “chilling effect” of the investigations on company research:

“The allegations are based on the false premise that ExxonMobil reached definitive conclusions about anthropogenic climate change before the world’s experts and before the science itself had matured, and then withheld it from the broader scientific community. Such a claim is preposterous … Contrary to activists’ claims, our company’s deliberations decades ago yielded no definitive conclusions …

“The investigations targeting our company threaten to have a chilling effect on private sector research. The allegations repeated today are an attempt to limit free speech and are the antithesis of scientific inquiry. Left unchallenged, they could stifle the search for solutions to the real risks from climate change.”

Exxon appears to believe no investigations should even take place. This is despite the very serious allegations going to securities and consumer laws. That’s how the law works: allegation – investigation – finding. But to Exxon this is all a case of “politically motivated” actions and “discredited reporting” that should be automatically dismissed.

The achievement of the ambition expressed in the Paris Agreement requires transformative legislation and corporate strategy.

In that context one might legitimately question: whose actions might have the most societally detrimental ‘chilling effect’ on tackling climate change? Exxon’s or the Attorneys General’s’?

 

 

Louise Rouse is an investment campaign consultant to Greenpeace UK.

Naomi Ages is attorney and campaigner with Greenpeace USA.

This article was originally published by Greenpeace Energydesk. Some additional reporting by The Ecologist.